SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
\VA R BACKGROUND STUDIES
NUMBER SEVEN
THE JAPANESE
By
JOHN F. EMBREE
(Publication 3702)
CITY OF WASHINGTON
PUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
JANUARY 23, 1943
BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.
CONTENTS
Page
Introduction 1
Origins 1
The mythological story of origin 1
Racial and cultural origins 5
The feudal period 8
National social structure 11
Group rule and rotating responsibility 11
Political framework 11
Economic framework 13
Recent trends 15
Family and household 17
Family structure 17
The household 18
Age 19
Position of women 20
Cycle of life 21
Birth and infancy 21
Formal education 23
Marriage 25
Death 26
Religion 26
Buddhism 27
Shinto 28
The seasons 30
Religion as a form of social control 34
Concluding remarks 34
Cultural homogeneity and borrowing 34
Popular misconceptions regarding the Japanese 36
Appendix: Facts and figures 39
References and selected bibliography 41
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
Page
1. Izanami and Izanagi 6
2. Neolithic stone implements 6
3. 1, Man with Ainu trait of hair on face and body 6
2, Man with Malayan trait of wavy hair 6
iii
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Tile-roofed house of a landowner . . 6
Thatch-roofed farmer's house 6
Prefectural road running tlirough a country town 14
A main street in Tokyo 14
Imperial theater, Tokyo 14
New Diet building, Tokyo 14
Preparing a rice field for planting 14
Cooperative labor group transplanting rice seedlings 14
Wood carriers resting on a steep mountain path 14
Rest period during work at rice transplanting 14
Marriage 22
Naming ceremony 22
Childhood 22
Boy Day (May 5 ) . . 22
Death 22
Household shrine 22
Radio exercises in the school yard 22
Young men of high school age in drill uniform at a school celebration. 22
Inari shrine and geisha girl 34
Festival in a country town 34
Respect for the aged 34
Cooperative labor on the neighborhood roads 34
Sericulture 34
Fishing 34
Transportation 34
Water power 34
TEXT FIGURES
Page
1. Map of the Japanese Empire vi
2. Curved jewels from a sepulchral mound 6
3. Lunar festival calendar of Suye Muia, a village in southern Japan 31
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Fig. 1. — Map of the Japanese Empire.
THE JAPANESE
By JOHN F. EMBREE
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
University of Toronto
(With 16 Plates)
INTRODUCTION
The people of Japan have suddenly forced themselves upon the atten-
tion of a nation whose citizens have known little or nothing of them in
the past, or have regarded them as quaint Gilbert and Sullivan folk in
kimono who could never really learn how to fly an airplane. We have
learned to our cost the error of this attitude.
In the pages that follow, a brief account is given of the origins and
present social structure of the Japanese nation. There is nothing "mysteri-
ously oriental" about Japanese. Like other human beings, their thoughts
and acts are conditioned by early training and cultural environment — the
better these are understood, the better the behavior of the people may be
understood and predicted.
Because most people are already familiar with them, descriptions of ma-
terial culture such as house types and clothing have been largely ignored
in this background study. The same applies to descriptive accounts of
Japanese art and literature. Instead, emphasis is laid on the social and
historical aspects of Japanese culture which are at once unfamiliar to
Occidentals and of special importance in determining Japanese attitudes
and behavior.
ORIGINS
THE MYTHOLOGICAL STORY OF ORIGIN
Like most insular peoples, the Japanese regard themselves as a race
apart. This idea of uniqueness is carried to the extreme of claiming lineal
descent from the gods who first created Nippon,^ the sacred land wherein
they dwell. Some understanding of Japanese attitudes toward the world
may be gained by a reading of their myths of origin, myths which to many
Japanese are fundamental articles of faith.
1 The name Japan is a modification of a Chinese reading of the characters
0 ;^. Jihpen. The Japanese pronounce these characters Nihon or Nippon.
1
2 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
In the beginning there was nothingness. Then a series of gods were
born "in the Plain of High Heaven" who did little but exist until the
advent of a male and female pair called Izanagi and Izanami. Izanagi
dipped a heavenly jeweled spear into the deeps, and the drops that fell
from it as he withdrew it formed the islands of Japan.
Performing a special marriage ceremony Izanagi and Izanami followed
each other around a heavenly august pillar, and she greeted him, "Ah
what a fair and lovely youth." He greeted her in return and they were
married." But their first children were "not good" and by divination it
was found that there had been an error in the wedding ceremony. The
man, not the woman, should have spoken first. So the whole ceremony
was repeated with Izanagi opening the conversation. Thus male superiority
was assured for all time.
After having many offspring Izanami finally gave birth to a fire god, in
the process of which "her august private parts were burnt and she sickened
and lay down." Then Izanagi, distraught at the death of his wife, wished
to follow her to the other world. When he came to the gate she warned
him not to look in because she was already in the ugly process of dissolu-
tion. He did so anyway and was horrified by what he saw. Izanami, angry
with shame, sent the Ugly Female of Hades to chase her inconsiderate
spouse. As he fled, Izanagi
took his black august head-dress and cast it down, and it instantly turned into
grapes. While she picked them up and ate them, he fled on; but as she still
pursued him, he took and broke the multitudinous and close-toothed comb in the
right bunch (of his hair) and cast it down, and it instantly turned into bamboo-
sprouts. While she pulled them up and ate them he fled on. Again later (his
younger sister) sent the eight Thunder-Deities with a thousand and five hundred
warriors of Hades to pursue him. So he, drawing the ten grasp sabre that was
augustly girded on him, fled forward brandishing it in his back hand; and as they
still pursued, he took, on reaching the base of the Even Pass of Hades, three peaches
that were growing at its base, and waited and smote (his pursuers therewith), so
that they all fled back. [Chamberlain, 1932.]3
Then Izanagi blocked up the gate to Hades and Izanami said, "If thou
do like this I will in one day strangle to death a thousand of the folks of
the land." Izanagi countered, "If thou do this then I will in one day set
up a thousand and five hundred parturition houses." Thus it came about
that for every 1,000 people who died 1,500 would be born, a sufficient
cause in itself for Japan's dense population !
2 The old Japanese records (Kojiki and Nihongi) describe in realistic detail this
first union of Izanagi and Izanami.
^ It is interesting to note the magical potency of the peach which is in Japan
a symbol of the vulva, fertility and, by inference, strength. Students of folklore will
recognize in the above passage a variant of the magic flight.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 3
After this polluting contact with death Izanagi purified himself by
washing. In the course of this washing a number of deities were born.
The name of the deity born as he washed his left eye was Amaterasu o
Mikami, the Sun Goddess; the deity born as he washed his right eye was
Tsuki Yomi No Kami, the Moon God; and the god born as he washed
his august nose was Susano-o No Mikoto, His Swift Impetuous Male
Augustness.
This last deity, Susano-o, was indeed an impulsive and troublesome per-
son. One day he appeared outside a house where his sister Amaterasu was
overseeing eight of her weaving women and suddenly threw in the window
the hide of a piebald horse, "flayed with a backward flaying." This strange
and unexpected act scared the wits out of the weaving women and caused
them to prick themselves in a shocking manner.
This and other misdemeanors of Susano-o so terrified and angered the
Sun Goddess that she closed behind her the door of the Heavenly Rock
Dwelling, thus bringing darkness to the whole Plain of High Heaven.
The 800 myriad deities gathered in the land of the Tranquil River of
Heaven and bid the deity Thought Includer to think of something. So he
thought of a plan. First he ordered a metal mirror to be made, and a
string of 500 curved jewels. Then a divination was performed and a
ritual enacted. Finally he called on an old female deity with a flower
in her hand to perform a dance on a wooden platform. She danced vig-
orously, causing the boards to resound, and as the dance achieved mo-
mentum she drew out her breasts and let down her skirt. The grotesque
scene caused the gods to laugh. Hearing the laughter the Sun Goddess,
having expected gloom to overcome the world when she retired, was
surprised and curious so she opened the door a crack to see what was
happening. One god handed her the mirror and another shut the door
behind her. Thus by a combined appeal to feminine curiosity and vanity,
the Sun Goddess was enticed from the cave and light came again into
the world.
During the age of the gods thousands of deities came into existence,
thus providing deities as ancestors for most of the important tribes and
clans of early Japan, spirits for the mountains and streams, and patron
gods for the villages. It is this myriad pantheon of deities and the rituals
associated with them that makes up what is today called Shinto.
The transition period between myth and history is the arrival on the
scene of Jimmu Tenno as the first historical ruler of Japan and the man
who first succeeded in bringing together under one rule a number of
separate tribes. Jimmu was born in Kyushu in 660 B.C. according to
Japanese orthodox history, or about A.D. 1 according to more critical his-
4 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
torians. After conquering the tribes of northern Kyushu and southern
Honshu, he estabHshed a permanent imperial hne that has existed un-
broken, if occasionally tangled, from his day to the present.
In A.D. 712 a history of Japan was compiled called the Kojiki and in
720 another called the Nihongi.* In these two books, the oldest Japanese
records, there is told the story of the origin and early history of the
Japanese and their rulers. These books were originally compiled with the
aim of sanctifying the rule of the imperial family then in power. In this
purpose the books have succeeded notably as evidenced by the fact that
Hirohito is of the same dynasty as Jimmu and by the fact that it was
through appealing to these old records that scholars in the nineteenth
century were able to aid in "restoring" power to the emperor whose
powers had been gradually usurped by the Tokugawa Shoguns over a
period of two and a half centuries.
It is from Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, that the Japanese imperial family
traces its descent and as the years have gone by this goddess — neither the
first deity nor a creator deity — has come to be the most sacred and impor-
tant figure in the Japanese pantheon. Today her spirit is worshiped at
the sacred shrine of Ise, and all events of national importance are reported
to her by the Emperor in person.
The moon deity is today relatively unimportant.
Susano-o, the Impetuous Male, however, is very important. The Japanese
frequently associate their national and individual character with that of
this rough, uncontrollable god who once so offended his relative Amaterasu
that she hid in a cave. Susano-o is associated with storms and characterized
by irrepressible animal spirits, and when Japan the modern nation throws
into the halls of the League of Nations the piebald hide of a Manchurian
incident, or when Japanese soldiers irrepressibly rape Chinese girls, this
is complacently attributed by many Japanese to the spirit of Susano-o.
The mirror and set of jewels used in the ceremony before the cave
where Amaterasu hid, together with a sacred sword given her by Susano-o,
were handed down to one of her descendants and today comprise part
of the sacred treasures of the imperial line. The mirror, supposed to be
the original, is kept at the great shrine of Ise, the jewels at the imperial
palace, and the sword at Atsuta shrine. Ritual dances performed at Shinto
shrines are regarded by some as being formalized versions of older more
freely sexual dances, and just such dances as that performed by the old
female deity before the cave of the Sun Goddess may be danced and en-
joyed today at drinking parties in rural areas of Japan.
* Translated into English by B. H. Chamberlain and W. G. Aston respectively.
(See bibliography.)
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE
RACIAL AND CULTURAL ORIGINS
The findings of anthropology are less specific, and certainly less enter-
taining than those of mythology, but they are more complex and present
many interesting problems.
Basically of Mongoloid stock, the peoples who inhabit the collection
of volcanic islands known as Japan are of mixed racial origin. As with
other old populations, it is impossible to state with exactitude the time
and source of the various early migrations. Lying off the great Asiatic
continent, Japan has drawn her peoples and much of her culture from the
north, south, and central coastal regions of this mainland region since
the dawn of history.
The aboriginal peoples known today as Ainu and characterized physically
by hairy chests and faces, probably came into Japan from an early Cau-
casoid stock of eastern Asia. The hairy Kumaso referred to in early
accounts of Kyushu and the existence in some parts of the Ryukyus of an
Ainu-like type indicate that originally men of the Ainu type lived in all
parts of Japan. Today they exist as a distinct ethnic group only in the
northern island of Hokkaido, though the occasional man with hair on his
chest attests to an Ainu strain in the modern Japanese population. The
majority of the more Mongoloid peoples came into Japan via Korea from
time to time over a period of centuries. Many of the early influences
which modified Japanese culture such as porcelain and writing came via
the Korean peninsula within historic times.
From the south came a Malayan or southeast Asiatic strain, accounting
for the occurrence of wavy hair among modern Japanese. The rare
occurrence of frizzy hair indicates also a small but definite strain of
Negrito in some southern areas. Incidentally, straight hair is the tradi-
tional Japanese ideal. For a woman to have wavy hair is a tragedy because
wavy and curly hair is considered to be like that of an animal. However,
in urban areas, despite the protests of male patriots, permanent waves are
now quite common — or were before the war.
Bearing in mind the fact that present-day Japanese people are the result
of extensive racial intermixture and that there is considerable variety of
individual types, we may summarize the Japanese physical traits as: Tan
skin color, straight or wavy black hair, dark eyes, facial and body hair fre-
quent in the men, and legs short in relation to trunk. Also of frequent
occurrence, though by no means always present, is the epicanthic fold
(the Mongoloid eye), and, in infants, the Mongoloid spot in the small
of the back.
On the average it may be said that Japanese, in contrast to Chinese, are
more likely to have wavy hair, a beard, and short legs. But, owing to the
6 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
variability of physical type and the predominant Mongoloid strain, it is
impossible to distinguish on purely physical grounds between individual
Japanese and Chinese. The differences in dress, language, and general
mental outlook between an educated Japanese and an educated Chinese are
due, not to racial, but to cultural background.
There is no positive archeological evidence of a Paleolithic culture in
Japan, in contrast to China where some of the oldest forms of man and
his culture have been discovered. The earliest phases of culture are
Neolithic — stone arrowheads and chisels, some bone implements including
a bone harpoon, some colored pottery. Earthen images give us knowledge
of the practice of facial tattooing and the use of red clay and bone combs.
Necklaces of bone and of stone were common, in striking contrast to
modern Japanese culture where such feminine ornaments as necklaces and
Fig. 2. — Curved jewels {magatama) from a sepulchral mound. (After Sansom.)
earrings are absent. The stones of the Neolithic necklaces are shaped like
animal teeth, and are much like those used in the ceremony to entice the
Sun Goddess from her cave. Evidences of pit dwellings similar to those
used by certain peoples of northeast Asia have also been discovered in
Neolithic sites. On the whole the evidence of archeology indicates two
definite influences: an Ainu-Tungusic culture from northeast Asia, and a
Malayan culture from the south.
Coming now to the early historic period, as described in the earliest
written texts compiled in the eighth century, we find a culture that was
characterized by agricultural, hunting, and fishing communities strung along
the coasts, and up the courses of the larger streams. Most of the people
of this period were preliterate, though writing had come to Japan early
in the fifth century. The material culture included the bow and arrow,
swords and knives of iron, the fire drill, a weavmg shuttle, the sickle, the
pestle and mortar, and the quern.
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
IZANAMI AND FZANAGI
The founding deities of Japan and the Japanese. (From
painting in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.)
SMITHSONIAIM WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
PLATE 2
*
*-J
NEOLITHIC Stone Implements
Found in northern Japan. (1/5 natural size.) (From An Economic History of
Japan, by Takao Tsuchiya.)
<u ^
^z
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. TiLE-ROOFED HOUSE OF A LANDOWNER
In the foreground is a rice seed bed.
2. THATCH-ROOFED FARMER'S HOUSE
The new building to the left is to be a barn.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 7
Navigation was evidently little developed as there are few references
to anything but a single-oared boat.
Houses of this period bear resemblances to structures in Malaysia, being
constructed of wood with thatched roofs. There was a raised platform for
sitting and sleeping. In the center of the floor was a fire pit, while win-
dows, when present, were very small. In the mountain areas of Japan
some homes of poorer peasants are still much like this.
In addition to regular houses there were parturition houses, one-roomed,
windowless huts where a woman retired to give birth to a child. A woman
was regarded as ritually unclean during this period. (Even to this day a
menstruating woman or a woman who has just given birth is not allowed
inside a Shinto shrine.)
If a death occurred, the old dwelling was destroyed or abandoned and
a new one erected elsewhere. Death, like blood, was regarded as unclean.
Paddy-field rice was then, as now, the basic crop and basic food, and
rice wine the favorite drink. Other vegetable foods included bamboo
shoots, beans, ginger, millet, seaweed, and peaches.
In the field of social organization, polygamy was common among the
upper classes and a man frequently married two women who were sisters.
Marriage involved an exchange of gifts. Children received personal names
from their mothers at a special naming ceremony, but there were at this
time no family names.
As in parts of Malaya today there was a period of tolerated sex freedom
in adolescence. A young man visited young girls at night, then finally
brought his choice back publicly to his parents' house. Women, then as
now, were expected to be faithful, but no such duty was required of the
husband.
Thou, .... indeed, being a man, probably hast on various headlands that thou
seeist, and on every beach headland that thou lookest on, a w^ife like the young
herbs. But I, alas! being a woman, have no spouse except thee. [Chamberlain,
1932.]
Head chopping, much practiced by the samurai in feudal times, may
have had its origin in head-hunting customs of this period, customs
presumably similar to those of tribes in Formosa and the northern
Philippines.
Religious beliefs and practices included elements similar to those of both
northeast Asia and of Malaysia, many spirits of the woods, the rivers and
the sea, and shamans or mediums who were frequently women. Many of
the native rituals were of a purificatory nature.
A number of local kingdoms arose in Kyushu about the beginning of
our era, some of them considerably influenced in their development by
8 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO, 7
contact with Korea. Gradually these kingdoms extended northward till by
the seventh century the one in Yamato became uppermost and eventually
gained control of all Japan as far north as Sendai. The historic period
began in 712 when, in order to establish its line as legally superior to
other kingdoms and dynasties, the Yamato court had the Kojiki compiled.
THE FEUDAL PERIOD
Skipping over the long and interesting history of Japan from the eighth
century of strong Chinese influence, the tenth century, a brilliant court
epoch in which the literary arts flourished, the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries of civil wars, we come to the era of internal peace and cultural
consolidation, known as the Tokugawa period. In order to understand
the people of modern Japan, it is necessary to know something of this
stage in Japanese history because of its strong influence on contemporary
Japanese culture.
For over 200 years — from 1615 to 1868 — the Tokugawa feudal regime
remained in power. The Tokugawa government was essentially a military
dictatorship carried on in times of peace, and after its initial battles against
previous rulers, its main purpose was to preserve the peace by means of a
feudal and military form of government with as little social change as
possible.
The emperor, as sacred and nominal political head of the state, resided
in the court capital of Kyoto, while the Tokugawa set up actual govern-
ment in Yedo (now called Tokyo) . The country was divided into feudal
fiefs, each with a lord or daimyo having full control and responsibility in
his own province to keep law and order and to raise taxes. The Tokugawa
themselves were simply the largest and most powerful of such feudal lords
with the largest estates and hence the greatest wealth and power. To pre-
vent revolution against their leadership, the Tokugawa required each lord
to spend a part of the year in Tokyo and while at home to leave his wife
and children behind in the capital as hostages. The mass of the people
were farmers owing allegiance and taxes to the lords of their respective
districts and under the control of samurai, the soldiers of the lord.
The governmental system of the Tokugawa was characterized by a
rotation of responsibility and a set of ethical principles calculated to pre-
serve the peace of the country through a series of careful controls. The
responsibilities of high officials were rotated from time to time or divided
in such a way as to avoid any monopoly of power by one person. This
system extended right down to the small kumi or group of five persons
who formed the unit of rural control. This aspect of the feudal govern-
THE JAPANESE EMBREE 9
ment is important because today, in rural regions and in the Tokyo gov-
ernment, there are similar features of divided and rotated responsibility.
Among the ethical principles of government were the virtues of filial
piety and loyalty to one's superiors, which were constantly stressed. Farm-
ers were urged to be industrious, samurai to be loyal and spartan. One aim
of such an ethic, as manipulated by the government, was to preserve un-
changed the system of social classes. Even today similar exhortations to
industry, frugality, and loyalty are given to the people.
Further to prevent political troubles, a system of government agents
was maintained to give reports on conditions in the various provinces.
This early internal intelligence system is the precedent for the thorough
system of internal secret police maintained by the contemporary Japanese
government.
Laws were broad in nature, often not known to the people, and they
frequently carried different punishments for offenses by persons of different
classes. The people were then, as now, expected to do as they were told
without asking questions. The common people of Japan even today have
a remarkable, unquestioning faith in all that comes from government
sources.
There was a fairly rigid system of social classes, each with its own occu-
pation, forms of dress, and types of law, all prescribed by the govern-
ment. Below the Tokugawa rulers and the feudal lords there was the
military caste or samurai who, as peace extended in area and time, came
to have little to do and so developed such leisure-time rituals as the tea
ceremony. Next in rank came the farmers and artisans, the producers of
the country. Below them legally came the merchants, but these merchants
frequently had a stronger economic base than either farmer or artisan — a
disfunctional aspect of the system that eventually helped to upset the
whole feudal organization. At the bottom of the social scale were pariah
groups, such as the Eta, concerned with the tanning of hides and other
work involving slaughtered animals.
Christianity, which had gained a foothold in certain sections of Kyushu,
was ruthlessly suppressed because of the fear that through the Portuguese
and other missionaries it might lead to political trouble from within and
the encroachment of foreign powers from without. In order to check the
growing power of the Shinshu sect of Buddhism, it was split into two
sections (East and West Hongwanji) . Otherwise religion was left pretty
much to itself and, after the enforced split of the Shinshu church, Buddhist
priests had little to do with politics. The same was true of Shinto so far
as the priesthood was concerned, although certain Shinto scholars even-
tually made use of Shinto texts to justify the overthrow of the Tokugawa
regime.
10 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
Agriculture received attention from the government, which realized its
importance to the state, but little thought was given to the well-being of
the farmer as an individual. More than one agrarian revolt occurred despite
the severe repression of them by the government.
In the city during this period the popular theater — Kabuki — developed,
as well as puppet shows and an elaborate demimonde of geisha and prosti-
tutes. Both actors and geisha were favorite subjects of the color-print
artists who reached their height at this time. The merchants, who had
plenty of money, were the chief patrons of the theater and the arts, as well
as of the courtesans. The government frequently issued restrictive laws,
but to little effect. In recent years the Japanese government has again
shown its concern about the "morals" of its urban people by closing dance
halls and prohibiting all kinds of sentimental songs.
In addition to the many controls within the country, the Tokugawa,
after expelling the early missionaries and teachers, prohibited all foreign
trade except for a small, rigidly controlled trickle through Dutch traders
at Nagasaki. There was also a prohibition on the building of seaworthy
ships, and no Japanese was allowed to leave the country on pain of death.
At the very period when European nations were expanding, creating vast
colonial empires, Japan deliberately shut herself off from the very fields
she has gone forth to conquer today.
Thus, over a long period of time Japan was able to consolidate her
culture and create a people with remarkably uniform cultural values and
ways of life. But a culture is never completely static no matter how
isolated, and there were enough changes going on within Japanese society
eventually to make unworkable the feudal controls originally set up by the
Tokugawa. Merchants gained power while samurai and even feudal lords
lost it after two centuries of peace. Shinto scholars came to the conclusion
that the Tokugawa had usurped the powers of the emperor and that
Shinto was in danger of being completely assimilated to Buddhist theology.
So when Perry came to knock forcibly at the gates of Japan, the
Tokugawa were unable to refuse an invitation to deal with foreigners,
especially an invitation that was backed by superior firearms. This capitula-
tion so weakened their position at home that they were soon overthrown,
and in the name of restoring power to the emperor a new regime was
established in 1868, thus inaugurating the Meiji era — the era when Japan
once again opened her arms to a foreign culture, this time Western
culture. In the course of a generation she transformed her economy from
one of self-sufficient agriculture to one of industry dependent on foreign
markets and overseas raw materials, a transformation so great that it led
to no less than four foreign wars in 15 years.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 11
NATIONAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE
GROUP RULE AND ROTATING RESPONSIBILITY
Japan's national social structure still retains many features of Tokugawa
feudal days, despite the drastic economic changes of the past 80 years.
At the apex of the structure is the emperor, in whose name all acts of
national importance are carried out. The governmental control in Tokyo
follows a number of different lines, and the control at the various levels of
responsibility is the function of groups, or is carried out by a rotation of
individuals rather than by a single, permanent responsible head. Thus in
the Tokyo government there is a whole group of individuals, including
members of the privy council, the prime minister, and the army and navy
ministers, all important, who collectively determine national policy in
agreement with Japanese tradition, internal conditions of the country,
and the world situation. By the Japanese system the heavy responsibility
of national government is too great for any mere human being — hence one
of the important functions of the sacred emperor is to serve as the in-
dividual in whose name national policy is carried out. Another function
of the emperor, as a symbol of the national tradition and as the "father"
of his people, is to reinforce the social solidarity of Japan.
The ruling group serves as an advisory body to the emperor and comes
to its decisions, as a rule, only after considerable discussion and compro-
mise. In the cabinet organization, for example, the prime minister is not
the leader of the group, but rather the coordinator of the group and he
cannot act without the agreement of the army and navy ministers. To affect
governmental policy, therefore, it is necessary to affect representatives of
several groups, not simply one or two.
POLITICAL FRAMEWORK
There are a number of recognized administrative units from the na-
tional government in Tokyo to the little village or mura government of
the rural areas. A mura or village is a collection of hamlets with locally
elected officials. There is no county unit recognized administratively to-
day, so the next unit above the village is the prefecture or ken, of which
there are 47 in all. Each prefecture has a governor appointed from Tokyo
and a locally elected prefectural legislature. Above the prefecture comes
the government in Tokyo made up of ( 1 ) a new, comparatively ineffective
diet or parliament, the members of which are nationally elected by male
voters aged 25 or over, (2) a vast and strong bureaucracy, and (3) a small
body of important men who rotate as heads of ministries, members of the
privy council and advisors to the emperor. These include military men.
12 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
men of the old nobility, and a fair percentage of men who have risen
from the ranks against great odds.
The system of group rule is old in Japan and extends all the way down
to the smallest village hamlet. The headship of a hamlet usually rotates
from year to year, from one house head to another, so that no one person
carries the burden of the responsibility indefinitely. The village headman,
as against the hamlet head, is usually elected from the body of councilors
(elected by adult men of the village) for a number of years, and may be
frequently reelected. In any important matter of local government such
as the budget, the headman can act only after extensive discussion with,
and after complete agreement of, the village councilors. He is usually a
person well liked by most of the villagers. Thus there is a definite local
democratic system for local afi^airs within Japan.
The village headman has two important functions in the national social
structure: (1) to serve as official intermediary between the people of the
village and all outsiders, official or unofficial; (2) to keep peace within the
village. He is expected to take a personal fatherly interest in the welfare
of his villagers, even acting as arbitrator in a quarrel between a villager
and his wife.
The headman's function as middleman between the village and extra-
village government bodies is typical of many aspects of Japanese life,
where the go-between plays an important role. In marriage arrangements,
in the purchase and sale of livestock and property, in delicate negotiations
between two people or two social groups, it is the Japanese pattern to
employ a neutral third party to act as go-between. In this way is avoided
the face-to-face bargaining which might lead to argument or irreparable
loss of face to one party or the other.
Except at the highest levels, there is a combination of locally elected and
government-appointed officials. While the Japanese government is to a
large degree authoritarian and paternalistic, there is also present a strong
element of democracy. One reflection of this is the fact that no one likes
to hold a position of responsibility for too long. Another is the way in
which, while things of national importance are decided unequivocally
from Tokyo, things of local importance are left to the local governments.
In the village or mura the headman is locally elected, as are the village
councilors, but the agricultural advisor is appointed by the prefectural
department of agriculture, and the village school teachers are appointed
by the prefectural department of education. The local Shinto priest re-
ceives his appointment from the prefectural government, but he is usually
a local man recommended by the local headman. Thus local aff^airs are
locally administered but agricultural efficiency and formal education, being
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 13
of national importance, are directed by government officials indirectly con-
trolled from Tokyo via the prefectural governments. Members of the
prefectural assembly are popularly elected by men of the prefecture, but
the prefectural governor is appointed from Tokyo.
ECONOMIC FRAMEWORK
Economically as well as politically, villages, towns, and cities have
interrelations, but the economic network has a different pattern from the
political one. Instead of the ties being primarily from Tokyo to prefecture
to village, they tend to emphasize the economic interdependence of urban
and rural societies.
In the predominantly rural areas of wet rice agriculture and sericulture — -
and this includes with some modification coastal fishing areas — a typical
pattern is a series of small country towns, each with its own collection of
satellite villages. The towns in turn are related to the small cities, urban
centers which are frequently the sites of old county seats or the castles of
feudal lords. These in turn are economically tied to the great metropolitan
centers of a million or more population.
The basic tie between the town and the village results from the fact
that the town serves as a trade center for its region. From time to time
and on special market days, people from the villages, especially women,
visit the town to sell farm products (except rice — rice is sold through regu-
lar rice brokers or through a farmers' cooperative). Unless there is a
special market, most of the selling is to some dealer in the town. With
the money thus obtained, or with other money, the villagers will buy
manufactured goods — farm tools, noodle cutters, cloth goods, some special
cake or candy. Except for the cake and candy, most of these goods are
manufactured not in the town but in some large industrial center and
reach the small town retailer through a traveling agent or via an agent
in the nearest small city.
Thus the shops in the country towns serve simply as economic go-be-
tweens so far as supplying the farmer with manufactured products is
concerned. But the townsmen depend in a very fundamental way on the
neighboring villages for food and for fuel (charcoal). They purchase
these with profits from retail sales to countrymen and also through profits
from some special services to traveling officials and traveling salesmen.
These "special services" include hotels and geisha houses.
The geisha houses provide another social link between town and village,
since most of the girls who work in them come from the villages, usually
from poor families, the girl selling her services because of family debts.
14 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
Her patrons, however, are not villagers. Geisha houses make their money
either from visiting travelers or from some local businessman giving a
banquet, or some traveling agent entertaining a number of local business-
men as a means of creating good will.
There are other relations between town and village of a social and
ceremonial nature, which serve to emphasize those which are basically
economic. For instance, each country town has its own special Shinto
shrine housing its own particular patron deity or deities. Annually, on
the day sacred to the deity, a great ceremony and festival is held. The
chief purpose of the festival is a special ceremony at the shrine and there
is often a ceremonial procession of the deity through the streets of the
town. Associated with this religious rite there are many secular entertain-
ments such as wrestling bouts and performances of local dances by visiting
village groups, as well as formalized dances by girls of village origin from
the local geisha houses. Thousands of people from the villages attend
such festivals, and these people, of course, bring a lot of money to the
local tradesmen; as a consequence the tradesmen are usually generous
contributors to the shrine committee when it is collecting money. Impor-
tant events such as the opening of a new school or other public building
may also serve as a pretext for a carnival. For villager and townsman
alike the festival, with its crowds and varied entertainments, serves as an
enjoyable recreation from daily routine labor.
There are also other social ties between individuals living in villages
and those living in towns. A well-to-do villager, for instance, may send
his daughter to the town's girls' school, or his son to its agricultural
college. A village headman may serve on a Red Cross committee or be
a member of a hospital association with headquarters in the town. Mar-
riage ties may associate a man with someone in the town on a kinship basis.
This last tie is, however, more likely to occur between village and village,
since the average townsman would regard marriage with a rustic villager
as beneath him.
The country town and its cluster of villages thus forms a closely inter-
related economic and social unit. It is to be noted that the lines of social
communication are, except for marriage, between village and town, not
between village and village. There is another set of ties, that between the
country towns and the commercial county center or small city, but again
not among the small towns themselves. One more economic fact of social
significance is that country roads lead to the towns, and connecting the
country towns are prefectural roads which lead to prefectural capitals.
Ultimately all roads lead to Tokyo.
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. The Prefecturau road running through a Country Town
2. A Main Street in Tokyo
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. THE IMPERIAL THEATER, TOKYO
2. The new Diet Building, Tokyo
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. Preparing a Rice Field for planting
The towel about the man's head is an indispensable part of all Japanese work dress.
2. Cooperative Labor Group Transplanting rice Seedlings
The man in the foreground wears an old-fashioned type of trousers and carries
his pipe and tobacco pouch at his waist. The woman is wearing a straw smudge
to keep off insects.
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
T-v'V ^-^^
1. WOOD Carriers resting on a Steep Mountain Path
2. Rest Period during Work at Rice Transplanting
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 15
RECENT TRENDS
Japan is essentially an old, stable, peasant society suddenly transformed
into an industrial nation. While the urban growth has been great, the
rural areas have changed but little so far as population is concerned, and
together with this population stability goes a remarkable cultural stability
in the realm of religious and social affairs. The important developments
in rural Japan are of an economic nature and introduced through outside
agencies — improved agricultural techniques brought in by governmental
agricultural advisers, improved transportation and communication facili-
ties by means of railroad and telegraph, electricity, and manufactured
clothing as a result of national industrial development. These changes
in rural life have made greater mobility possible for farmers, but as com-
pared with city people rural Japanese are still relatively immobile.
These same new facilities also make it possible for the Tokyo govern-
ment better to control all areas of the country by keeping in closer touch
with them, maintaining government-appointed police, school teachers, and
agricultural advisers in every little rural village.
Some interesting social forms have been carried over into modern
industry from feudal days. The master-apprentice relation has been ex-
tended to the modern factory. (A large section of modern Japanese in-
dustry is decentralized in small shops of less than a dozen workers.) The
traditional rights and obligations of both master and apprentice are main-
tained— the master to house, educate, and train; the apprentice to work,
be obedient, and learn.
For large-scale textile and other industries girls are brought in from
rural areas to work under conditions which, while good from their point
of view, are definitely paternalistic and restricted. The employer houses .
the girls in dormitories, sees that they are fed, and may even provide in-
struction in such traditional female arts as flower arrangement and the
tea ceremony. The girls are trained to be efficient in factories but are
given no chance or promise of advancement. The girls, however, are not
in industry for life, but simply to earn enough to get married and go
on through life as good wives and mothers.
One important aspect of this situation whereby modern industry oper-
ates in a social framework of traditional Japanese feudalism is that in-
dustrialism has produced in Japan remarkably few changes in social
structure and family organization.
For Japan as a whole the great increase in nonrural population and the
developments of industry have brought with them some social strains and
difficulties, despite the careful controls surrounding the development of a
16 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
Japanese machine age. First, there is the frequently observed social and
cultural gap between Japanese city people with their radios, movies, and
automobiles, and the Japanese villagers who still use foot-powered rice
threshers and whose recreation consists largely in folk song and folk dance
enlivened by locally brewed rice wine. This social distance sometimes re-
sults in ignorance of farmers' needs by urban dwellers and mistrust of
merchants and capitalists by farmers. This is especially significant when
it is realized that the farmers and the army often see eye to eye. The
financial fluctuations associated with a money economy, little understood
by either farmer or soldier, make it easy for the army to use the urban
capitalists as scapegoats in their appeals for support from farmer and
worker.
Another strain on Japanese society has been the growing need of Japan
for markets for her manufactured goods and easy access to raw materials
such as wool and cotton to feed her new factories. In a world of free
trade this problem would not be serious, but in the twentieth-century
world of high tariffs, a new industrial nation is seriously handicapped
especially if she is small in area and lacking in extensive overseas colonies.
This situation explains in part Japan's attempt to solve her troubles by
invading Manchuria in 1932, attacking China in 1937, and overrunning
Malaysia in 1942.
During recent years there has been a remarkable consolidation of the
whole of Japanese social organization. Wherever possible there has been
an amalgamation of several similar organizations overlapping in function
to create a new single organization more or less under government con-
trol. For example, in 1940 all political parties dissolved themselves in
the interest of national solidarity. This remarkable self-dissolution also
took place among the numerous labor organizations. The number of
newspapers and news agencies has been reduced until today there is only
one official Japanese news agency, Domei, and all foreign-controlled news-
papers have been taken over by Japanese. This gives the Tokyo govern-
ment greatly increased powers in affecting public opinion. Numerous
power companies have been consolidated and brought under greater gov-
ernment control. Everything foreign has been Japanized. The most drastic
of these antiforeign moves was the Japanization of Christian missions
whereby all direct foreign influence was done away with, most foreign
missionaries edged out of the country, and the Bible revised to conform
with Shinto mythology.
What is happening appears to be partly a reaction from two genera-
tions of extensive change in Japanese culture due to contact with the
West: the growth of industrialism with a consequent weakening of family
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 17
solidarity, and contact with different social and religious systems with a
consequent development of critical scholarship. Government leaders have
begun to reconsolidate the nation as did the Tokugawa before them by
uniting all competing factors under strong centralized control and by
excluding foreigners and foreign ideologies from the country. These
moves have been spurred by the rebuffs Japan has met from Western na-
tions whenever she has attempted to expand. The most acute emotional
stimulus of this nature was, perhaps, the American Exclusion Act of
1924 with its implication of racial inferiority.
The fervor with which all this reorganization has been carried out by
some Japanese patriots suggests more than simply a reaction — it suggests
a cultural-religious revivalism. With many non-European groups, after
extensive disorganizing contact with Western culture, a violent religious
revivalism sets in characterized by a desire to renounce anything Western
and go back to the ways of the ancestors. Such a reaction serves to give
the group a new feeling of social solidarity and to create new faith in the
native beliefs which have been undermined by contact with Western cul-
ture. This phenomenon has occurred among Bantu tribes in Africa, Indian
tribes in North America, and Melanesian tribes in New Guinea, but
when it occurred, the non-Western group had no effective means of
getting rid of the foreigner and his influences. Japan, with Western
armaments and industrialism, is in a much better position to carry out in
action her antiforeign cultural revival.
FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD
FAMILY STRUCTURE
The structure of the Japanese family is based on a patrilineal and patri-
archal principle whereby each family has continuity for ages unending
through the kinship tie extending from father to son to grandson. In
order to preserve the unity and continuity of the family, it is the duty of
a son to marry and produce male descendants. If no son is born a man
may adopt a boy and so create a male descendant by a legal fiction. Any
misdeed of a son or daughter is a reflection on the family name — a name
that should never die out and should never be tarnished. Within the
family the father is head of the house but the wife takes care of house-
hold affairs, child education, and preliminary marriage arrangements.
For matters of great importance, a marriage, a death, buying or selling
of land, the house head calls in members of the extended family to come
together as a family council to celebrate, mourn, or consult as the occasion
demands.
18 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
While an individual has many duties toward his family — obedience to
parents, especially father, good conduct outside the home, and care for
the ancestral spirits — the family also has duties toward the individual,
especially that of caring for him in all times of crisis. If, for instance, a
member of the family has gone to the city and failed, he may come home
and again share the family roof and board.
The family is the basic unit of civil control, each house head in a town
or village being responsible to the local authorities for the good conduct
of his household. In the system of military control nearly every family
plays a part either through having a son as a conscript soldier or through
having an ex-soldier as a reservist. The reservists, being more numerous
and being older, form the important local units of military control, taking
charge of local activities such as seeing off new soldiers for the barracks,
supervising school drills, and participating in all local group activities of
importance. Furthermore every reservist in a family serves as a living
example to the sons of the household of the military duties of a Japanese.
In religious matters the family is the most important unit in the Buddhist
organization, and the Buddhist priest is the important ritualist in funeral
services and memorial ceremonies for the spirits of the deceased. The
kin tie through the generations is actively maintained by daily ancestor
worship at the household Buddhist shrine. In matters of family solidarity
the family group attitudes and the Japanese Buddhist beliefs and practices
reinforce each other.
Popular Shinto is not important in family affairs except insofar as it
provides a body of common beliefs and practices for all members of the
group. State Shinto on the other hand, with its emphasis on the familial
aspect of the nation — a father emperor with subject children— points up
the individual family organization by indirectly endorsing the scheme of
a male head of the family who is responsible for the members of his
family, who in turn owe him love and self-sacrifice.
THE HOUSEHOLD
Among the very poor, family and household are synonymous, but most
families, even those of rural farmers, have also at least a maidservant or
a manservant or both, living with them under the same roof. These
servants are usually contracted for and paid on a yearly basis, the wages
often going directly to the parents of the young girl or young man. The
servant lives with the family, sleeping in the same house and, in rural
areas, eating at the same table. On the occasion of some big holiday or
festival the master gives the servant some pocket money to spend and at
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 19
New Year's provides a new set of clothing. Thus the servant becomes
almost one of the family and is indeed often a nephew or niece — the
child of some less well-to-do relative. Like a son or daughter, the
servant is expected to show loyalty to the employer, and the employer for
his part is expected to look after the servant's welfare. Usually a young
man or woman works out as a servant for a few years, setting up his or her
own household after marriage.
Occasionally, some relative of the head or of his wife other than their
parents or children may be living in the house as a part of the household.
The household, thus composed, is the basic unit of Japanese civil life.
In rural regions, on all cooperative labor, each household, not each family
or each man, is expected to contribute one worker.
The house which serves as the home of this closely knit group is usually
well protected by sacred talismans against evil and sickness. They may
be pasted by the front gate or in the kitchen. Within the main room
there is the sacred Buddhist alcove for the ancestral tablets, and a Shinto
shelf near it. These sacred things are usually near the tokonoma, a special
alcove for flowers and a decorative scroll. (The tokonoma is the honorable
part of the room, and when guests attend a banquet, they are arranged in
order of age and prestige, down from the alcove.) Up in the rafters
there is still another sacred protection which was placed there in a special
ceremony when the framework of the house was first constructed. In
some rural areas a bit of the first drink of the evening is dropped into
the fire pit for the spirits.
The characteristic house type is one on low piles, made of light wood
and surmounted by a thatch or tile roof. The general structure is
similar to that found in parts of the Philippines and elsewhere in Malaysia,
though many architectural details are peculiar to Japan. There are vast
differences in quality according to the wealth and social position of the
occupants. Whereas a poor farmer dwells in a two-room cottage with
floor mats somewhat the worse for wear, and rafters blackened by smoke
from the fire, a nobleman lives in a two-story structure of a dozen or more
rooms, each one with immaculate mats and beautiful woodwork.
AGE
Both in the family and in Japanese society as a whole, there is a strong
emphasis on age. This is especially true among men. Boys or men of
the same age are especially close, and the words of an older man carry
weight simply because of the age of the speaker.
The first son in a family enjoys not only the favored position in matters
of inheritance, but in education and attention as well. Even the kinship
20 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
terms reflect this strong emphasis on age. While there are terms for elder
brother and younger brother, there is no term simply for brother. A
young person could never become an important political or social leader
in Japanese society.
POSITION OF WOMEN
The position of women in Japan is what is usually called, by American
standards, low. In evidence of this it may be noted that women in Japan
cannot vote, as a rule they are not educated beyond the high-school level,
and a man may divorce his wife at will although she cannot divorce him,
against his will, except for serious cause.
Furthermore, men in urban and upper-class groups, when they go out
for social functions, leave their wives at home. If female society is de-
sired, it is obtained by hiring geisha girls to sing and entertain.
In the home a woman by tradition is expected first to obey her father,
then after marriage to obey her husband, and finally, in widowhood to
obey her eldest son. In taking the evening bath, it is first the master,
then the older sons, and finally the wives, daughters, and servants.
Educational emphasis, beginning even before primary school, is to
make a woman dutiful and patient. This produces in the middle classes a
very sweet and docile woman, the Japanese ideal of wife and mother.
Among the upper classes women sometimes receive higher education, oc-
casionally have an opportunity to travel abroad, and are encouraged to
master some cultural art such as playing the musical koto or performing
the tea ceremony. Since these upper-class women have servants and are
not expected to do household chores, they can devote more time to cultural
and intellectual matters, but they are still expected to be dutiful wives and
rarely accompany their husbands to any social events outside the home.
Among the poorer classes and on the farm, women are more the social
equals of men. The economic interdependence of husband and wife may
have something to do with this — a farmer whose wife is a good farmer
and at the same time a good manager of the household would hesitate to
insult her or treat her badly for fear she might leave him or simply lie
down on the job. Socially, also, women of the rural and lower classes
have greater equality and at parties and banquets both men and women
may participate, drinking, singing, and dancing. A farmer's wife is much
freer in act and speech than a middle- or upper-class woman would ever
dare to be.
Prostitution in Japan is regulated by the government. Regular prosti-
tutes (joro) are usually signed on for a period of 2 or 3 years. While
formerly a father could sell his daughter without her consent, this is no
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 21
longer true. However, in a poor family, if a father puts pressure on his
daughter to sign a contract there is no concerted public opinion to back
up any objections she may have to the proposition.
Geisha, in contrast to joro, are girls who have been trained in playing
the samtsen, singing, and in general providing pleasant female company
at a banquet. In rural hostelries the distinction between geisha and 'foro
is so thin as to be invisible, but in cities such as Tokyo the distinction is
marked, and the successful geisha are usually girls of considerable wit
as well as training. Geisha are courtesans with traditions stemming from
the court ladies of old Japan, while ]oro are simply members of the oldest
profession.
In recent years women have been organized into civic and patriotic
organizations to assist at reservist reviews, air-raid drills, etc. This is a
new development in Japanese life, quite contrary to the tradition that
woman's place is in the home or in her husband's field. Indeed, it has
taken a good deal of urging from school teachers and other government
officials to get these organizations under way. In urban areas, however,
they are rather important. This is, perhaps, a significant development
which will do more to change the traditional family pattern in Japan
than either urbanism or industrialism.
CYCLE OF LIFE
BIRTH AND INFANCY
As with Chukchee and other northeast Asiatic tribes, a Japanese woman
does not cry out in childbirth, for to do so would bring shame upon her.
This tabu on showing pain is probably associated with old tabus sur-
rounding childbirth as a ritually unclean event, an event to which it is
well to draw as little attention as possible. In modern Japan this attitude
has been assimilated to the growing pride in race and culture that has
characterized the Japanese of recent decades. According to the intellectuals
the Japanese woman is not ashamed but rather she is too proud to cry out
as her child is born.
In rural areas the afterbirth is usually buried somewhere in the yard
and the father walks over it. This guarantees that the child will respect
and obey his father. If a dog or some other animal were to walk over it
before the father, then the child would fear that animal — a situation to be
avoided. Certain foods such as pumpkin are to be avoided by the new
mother, and certain foods such as ame candy and tai fish are considered
beneficial. Neighbors usually visit the new mother and bring her gifts
of such good foods.
22 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
Sex is something of great concern to Japanese as to other people. While
sexual intercourse and childbirth are both carried out as privately as pos-
sible, there is plenty of public joking on the subject. Even the new-born
infant is made the subject of jocular remarks, a baby boy being called
taiho (cannon) a baby girl gunkan (warship).
The child's first introduction to society is at his naming ceremony,
which is held 3 or 5 days after birth. On this occasion near neighbors —
one from each household — and relatives living not too far away come to
a little party given by the parents in honor of the new child. The mid-
wife, as the professional expert involved in the child's birth, is also in-
vited. Each guest except the midwife brings a gift of kimono material
for the infant as well as rice and wine — this in exchange for the feast
food and wine to be consumed at the party.
The actual ceremony of naming may be done in a number of ways. One
is for the guests present to write names on slips of paper and place these
in a bowl in the tokonoma. The midwife, with the aid of sacred wine
and a Buddhist rosary, selects one slip and reads the name on it after which
the child is passed from guest to guest as each takes a drink and pronounces
the name thus selected. In this way the new child acquires a name and a
limited personality while the local community becomes aware of a new
member.
The birth of the child, if a first child, especially a first son, gives the
new wife added status in the eyes of her husband's family and also makes
her now a full-fledged member of her husband's community. In rural
areas, after the birth of a child a woman may give up some of her maid-
enly reserve, begin to smoke and drink a little and engage in occasional
broad banter.
The next stage in a child's life is a more religious one. At 31 days if a
boy, 32 if a girl, a child is taken to the local village Shinto shrine for a
ceremonial introduction to the patron deities of the village. This ceremony,
known as hiaki, is performed by the village Shinto priest. Hiaki marks
also the lifting of a number of tabus. The child may now be carried
across water, and the mother may now again sleep with her husband.
For about a year the new child, especially if a boy, is the favored one
in the family. At any time he may drink milk from his mother's breast and
whatever he cries for will be given him. At the same time, however, he
is rigidly trained in cleanliness. Together with his mother he has a daily
deep bath in very hot water. The strong emphasis on the daily bath among
Japanese is best understood by considering the general emphasis of
Shinto on ritual cleanliness. Furthermore, with the rule that no shoes may
be worn inside the house and the necessity of keeping the floor mats clean.
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SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
PLATE 11
1 . Death
New grave with temporary tamaya or soul house. This will later be replaced by a
permanent gravestone.
2. Household Shrine
The woman is a medium.
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. RADIO EXERCISES IN THE SCHOOL YARD
2. Young Men of High school Age in Drill uniform at
A School Celebration
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 23
the child is trained at an early stage not to wet or dirty either himself or
the mats.
Another complication that enters the young child's life and one that
comes as a shock to him after all the loving attention he has been receiving
from his parents, is that produced by his mother having another child.
She now devotes her attention to the newcomer and the 1- or 2-year old
is turned over to the care of an older brother or sister or nursemaid who
is by no means so attentive to his every whim as was his mother. As a
result there may be weeks of frequent temper tantrums.
This early period in a Japanese child's life is important in an under-
standing of his adult personality. The motherly affection coupled with
the severe toilet training and culminating in the sudden loss of attention
when the next child is born creates an early sense of insecurity which in
turn produces an adult who is never absolutely sure of himself and who
through compensation may become almost paranoic. There are a number
of social usages in Japan that fit into this interpretation of the adult per-
sonality pattern. For instance, the emphasis on face — i.e., the elaborate
provisions for avoiding an open insult or slight of a social equal, thus
avoiding injury to his amour propre. One standard mechanism providing
for this avoidance of embarrassment is the go-between through whom any
delicate negotiations between individuals or families are carried out. Loss
of face is also avoided in another social usage found in the governmental
structure whereby it is a group rather than an individual who assumes
responsibility. The adult manifestation of the temper tantrum resulting
from lack of attention or fancied slight is assassination, and the deep shame
felt from real or threatened loss of face is manifested by suicide. On a na-
tional scale, the fierce pride in race and culture may be in part associated
with this characteristic Japanese adult personality and in part with the
cultural revivalism referred to in a previous chapter.
FORMAL EDUCATION
At about the age of 3 or 4 a youngster becomes part of a small age
group and begins the slow process of learning to get along with his
contemporaries. Even in these early years a boy will receive special educa-
tional influences different from those of his sister. On a walk to some
beauty spot a mother may tell her young daughter to walk behind her
brother because she is the lady while the boy is the gentleman. A first
son as he grows up will be given preferred treatment over his younger
brothers.
Formal education begins at the age of 6. To begin with, the official
Shinto priest of the local shrine performs a ritual and hands out the
24 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
first book of ethics and patriotism. After the shrine service the child at-
tends school for the first time as a student, dressed in a school uniform.
Here he forms his first associations with contemporaries beyond his im-
mediate neighbors or relatives. The ties of men who have been classmates
are often very strong in adult life; even stronger than those between a
man and his wife.
The school day commences with the teachers leading their pupils in
radio exercises in the school yard. For 10 minutes every morning the
entire youth of the nation simultaneously goes through the same daily
dozen to the shrill directions of the same government radio station.
The school itself is often anything but comfortable and warm, a feature
that fits in with a Japanese tradition that one learns best when not too
comfortable. It also aids in another basic aim of Japanese education —
training in the virtues of frugality and self-discipline.
The Japanese school teachers, trained in government normal schools, are
torch-bearers of the Japanese way. Skeptics may appear in the ranks of
businessmen, college students, and ordinary civil servants, but almost never
among school teachers. More than once a Japanese teacher has lost his
life in an attempt to save the emperor's portrait from the flames of a
burning school building.
The curriculum includes in the early years liberal doses of songs in-
cluding a first-year song on the beautiful soldier, and lessons in ethics —
i.e., filial piety, cooperativeness, and reverence for the emperor. The
major problem, however, is that of learning to read and write. The
Japanese script is a combination of Chinese ideographs and a native
syllabary of 51 symbols. To make things more complicated there are two
forms of the syllabary, the square cut kata-kana and the cursive hira-gana.
To be able to read, one must learn the ideographs that are used in all
adult newspapers, magazines, and books — characters that may be used
either phonetically or semantically. From this it should be clear that to be
literate in Japanese is a major feat in itself. This situation means that in
the primary grades the Japanese have little time left over from ethics,
reading, and writing for the study of much in the field of the natural
and social sciences. While today every child goes to school for 8 years,
very few go on to high school or college. Thus the urban intellectual
class, which includes the governing group, is very small in relation to the
masses who, while they can read and write, know only what the govern-
ment may tell them in regard to either Japanese history or world events.
The basic aims of Japanese education are to produce literate and peace-
able subjects — subjects with sufficient knowledge to compete in the
modern world, but not enough to question the ways of the governing
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 25
groups. (The present government no doubt is aware of the fact that
scholars had a hand in the downfall of the Tokugawa regime.)
School buildings and grounds may be used for civic affairs not directly
connected with the children. Town meetings and banquets may be held
there, and often the annual inspection of military reserves takes place in
the school grounds. On this occasion all the women don patriotic womens'
association uniforms and act as hostesses to the visiting military, who in
return are frequently very haughty toward the local gentry. The re-
servists (men who have returned from the barracks) line up for in-
spection by the visiting officers. The inspection is followed by strong
nationalist speeches to the soldiers and special lectures to the women.
Thus once a year the local community has its attention drawn to war.
After leaving grammar school most young people in rural areas begin
their apprenticeship in farming, either aiding their parents or working
for some other family as manservant or maidservant. From some areas,
large numbers of girls go to work in factories for 2 or 3 years before
marriage. At the age of 21 conscription takes, in peace time, from a fourth
to a third of the young men for a period of military training. On their
return a marriage is arranged.
MARRIAGE
Marriage in Japan is a distinctly family affair. In the delicate negotia-
tions and investigations into family background a go-between is essential.
Gifts are exchanged between bride and groom before and at marriage.
Most of the gifts of the bride's family, such as footgear, and packages of
tea, come in pairs. The wedding ceremony consists of an exchange of rice
wine between bride and groom and bride and groom's father to seal the
bonds of marriage and indicate that the bride has entered a new family.^
There is no priest involved in the ceremony; instead the go-between is
the master of ceremonies.
Marriage is the greatest social event there is for the families concerned,
for through marriage come children and on children the future welfare
of the family depends. Through heirs a man's memorial tablets are prop-
erly cared for. Because of its importance relatives from far and near are
invited. The neighborhood's interest in the event is usually recognized by
a second special banquet whereby the new bride is introduced to the people
of her husband's community.
In rural regions practically everyone is married unless feeble-minded
or leprous. There is also a special fear of tuberculosis which may act as a
5 The ceremonial exchange of drinks between bride and groom bears a strong
resemblance to wedding practices in parts of Malaysia, e.g., the northern Philippines.
26 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
barrier to marriage. Through the family arrangement of marriages, it is
rarely that a man marries outside his social class.
At marriage a wife takes the Buddhist sect of her husband and his
ancestors become her ancestors. She is buried in the husband's family
graveyard. An exception to these general rules is marriage by adoption
whereby a family with a daughter but no son adopts a husband for this
daughter, who then changes his name to hers, and whose children become
heirs of her family, not his.
DEATH
Death, the transition of the soul from earth to an afterworld, is largely
the concern of the Buddhist priests. They are the ones who conduct the
funeral and perform the memorial services for the dead. These services,
attended by relatives, are performed every seventh day after the death for
7 weeks. The forty-ninth-day ceremony is known as hiaki and marks the
end of intensive mourning during which relatives abstain from eating
fish. There are also ceremonies on the first, third, and seventh years as
well as other intervals up to the fiftieth and one-hundredth year after
death. The purposes of these services is to insure the deceased a place in
paradise. Only after the last of these is performed may it be said that a
man ceases to influence the lives of the livmg.
In rural areas a funeral, like any other family event requiring assistance
such as a fire or a housebuilding, calls for aid from all the neighbors.
They prepare funeral objects such as lanterns and coffin as well as dig the
grave. The relatives meanwhile mourn the dead and give comfort to
the immediate family.
A number of special beliefs attend a death. Picture scrolls are turned
to the wall, the kimono of the deceased is folded the opposite way from that
of the living and those who touched the corpse must later wash with salt
water in order to purify themselves. There are many other special beliefs
and tabus which vary considerably from district to district, as for instance
the belief that an evil man may haunt the living in the form of a fire ball.
In the Kojiki there is reference to the soul of a dead man flying away as
a bird.^
RELIGION
In Japanese society the sacred aspects of life are more apparent than in
Western society. This is due, in part at least, to the broad peasant base
of Japanese society as well as to its long unbroken national existence.
6 One more evidence of early cultural ties between Japan and Malaysia.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 27
The myriad native beliefs concerning birth and death, sickness and health,
and the seasons of the year have grown up over centuries upon centuries
of existence as a cultural system based on wet rice agriculture. Today
the Japanese emperor, in the midst of a war fought with airplanes and
baby submarines, continues to perform rituals associated with the planting
and harvesting of rice, and Japanese children are told of their descent
from Izanami and Izanagi, the primeval pair who founded the land of
the fruitful rice ears.
BUDDHISM
Buddhism was introduced into Japan during the course of the sixth
century together with Buddhist sculpture and painting. Sponsored by
Prince Shotoku, Buddhism rapidly gained ground and at one time even
threatened to absorb all the native beliefs into its own system by in-
terpreting Japanese deities as special manifestations of Buddhist divinities.
Nearly every family in Japan belongs to one Buddhist sect or another.
The most popular one is Shinshu, according to the tenets of which if one
has sincere faith in the savior Amida one is sure to reach the western
paradise after death. The traditional religion of the samurai is Zen, which
emphasizes self-discipline as a means of enlightenment.
Buddhist household practices include the maintenance of a Buddhist
shrine or alcove (Buisudan) in which are kept the ancestral tablets. Daily
offerings of food and drink are made here as well as a brief ritual by
members of the family. The household aspects of Buddhism help to give
unity to the family group.
All matters concerning the afterlife, such as funerals and memorial
services for deceased relatives, are looked after by the local Buddhist priest.
Most of the larger Buddhist sects have headquarters in Kyoto, the
old prefeudal capital of Japan. Buddhist priests, after a period of training
at the theological seminary in Kyoto, go out to some temple where they
may spend a lifetime looking after the spiritual needs of their parishioners.
Formerly Buddhist priests, as educated men, served as the teachers and
leaders in their local communities and vital statistics were kept in the
local temple archives. But today, with government-trained teachers and
regular government census records, the Buddhist priest has lost much of
his former power and prestige. He is subject to military conscription and
has but little political power, since most active temple members are
women and old people. He does serve one important function from the
point of view of the government, that is soothing and keeping peace-
ful the common people with his talk of Amida's paradise.
28 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
In addition to the orthodox priestly aspects of Buddhism — temple ser-
vices, funerals, and memorial services — there are many popular aspects
of Buddhism that exist quite independently of any priest or temple. One
of the important popular deities is Jizo, who is usually personified in stone
as a priestly figure sitting by the roadside. Beliefs about Jizo are legion,
but in general he is looked upon as a friend, a protector of children's
souls, and a protector of dangerous places such as crossroads. Another
popular Buddhist deity is Kwannon, Goddess of Mercy. '^ A pregnant
woman often prays to Kwannon for a safe and easy delivery. In rural
Japan there is usually a little neighborhood do or sacred house where
children play and pilgrims rest. Within the do may be a figure of Jizo,
Kwannon, or some other popular Buddhist deity such as Yakushi, God of
Healing. There is no priest associated with the do. Its deity receives
flowers and other offerings from neighbors, and on days sacred to its
deity a little ceremonial food and drink is served to neighbors and pil-
grims by a local do committee whose membership rotates from year to
year within the neighborhood group. ^ These popular deities and the
neighborhood do serve to give a feeling of security to travelers and to the
local neighborhood. They serve quite a different function from formal
Buddhism with its emphasis on the soul and the afterlife.
SHINTO
Shinto beliefs and practices fall into three classes: Popular Shinto, sect
Shinto, and official or state Shinto. Shinto could almost be defined as
those sacred beliefs and practices which are not Buddhist.^ In one form or
another Shinto beliefs are held by practically all Japanese subjects regard-
less of their Buddhist affiliations.
In the realm of popular Shinto there are deities of good fortune, such
as Daikoku and Ebisu whose images are found in every farmhouse; spirits
of the well, of the land, and of the kitchen who add to the sacred aspects
of home and household. There are deities of river and forest, of pros-
perity and good crops, patron deities of hamlets and villages — all included
in the polytheistic beliefs of popular Shinto.
One of the most important of the popular Shinto deities is Inari, god of
rice, good crops, fertility, and prosperity in general. Inari's messengers are
■^ The Kwanyin of China.
8 The do in some parts of Japan is said by some Japanese ethnologists to have
once served as a men's house similar to men's houses in northern Malaysia.
8 The term itself came into existence only after the introduction of Buddhism
when a need was felt for some way to refer to the native Japanese sacred beliefs
and practices.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 29
foxes and by his temple there are always to be seen the figures of foxes.
Inari priests are usually men or women who have had a dream in which a
fox commanded them to set up or maintain an Inari shrine. These priests
are frequently faith healers curing the patients through the virtue of
Inari's powers. They may also act as mediums, the spirit of Inari possessing
their bodies and talking through their mouths.
Inari is also a deity of geisha and prostitutes, perhaps owing to the sexual
connotations of Inari's function as god of fertility. Geisha regularly pay
their respects to the nearest Inari shrine in order to gain his favor
and so have many patrons.
The role of the fox as Inari's messenger is simply one of many super-
natural roles played by the fox in Japanese folk belief. By popular tradi-
tion foxes have the power of bewitching the unwary by transforming them-
selves into beautiful women. Many is the tale of a man being seduced
by such a fox woman and even marrying her and having children, only
later suddenly to discover himself to have been bewitched. Dogs, who also
have certain supernatural powers, can always detect a fox woman and
will bark and snap at her.
The chief role of the dog, however, is a more malevolent one in the
form of witchery by means of a dog's spirit. Those who have this power,
usually crotchety old women, can perform black magic, bring ill luck
and even death on their enemies. Such black magic is usually performed
as a result of covetousness, envy, or jealousy.
Every village has a local village Shinto shrine housing the deity or
deities who protect the village. These deities are looked after by the
village Shinto priest, and it is to their shrine that infants are brought when
a month old. Most Japanese soldiers take with them as an amulet a small
package of earth from the village shrine or from the shrine of a sacred
mountain in the region to protect themselves from harm in battle.
"With the exception of black magic through the dog spirit, the sacred
beliefs and practices of popular Shinto serve to give unity to local groups
of people, or to heal the sick and give protection. Popular Shinto gives a
man confidence in the face of the uncertainties of life, while orthodox
Buddhism looks after his immortal soul.
In addition to such beliefs and practices, there are also 13 formally
organized sects of Shinto, such as Tenrikyo, which are comparable in
function to Buddhist sects. While the ordinary popular Shinto beliefs do
not interfere with Buddhist beliefs, members of a Shinto sect are not
members of a Buddhist sect.
The government distinguishes between beliefs such as the above and
the special sacred beliefs and practices associated with nationalism, the
30 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
emperor and his deified ancestors, especially Meiji, Jimmu, and Amaterasu
o Mikami. Ceremonies associated with this state Shinto are regularly per-
formed in local village shrines as well as in the great national shrine of
Ise in Mie Prefecture. By official definition this state Shinto is not a
religion, but rather an aspect of patriotism. By means of this distinction
it is possible for Japan to have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of
religion and still require Shinto observances of all her subjects regardless
of whether they be Buddhist, Christian, or Agnostic.
The beliefs in regard to the emperor, his ancestors, and the deities who
created Japan and the Japanese serve the very important function of
uniting all the little villages and hamlets, all the towns and cities, into a
united nation with a solidarity based on common sacred beliefs. Together
with the attributes of Japanese national spirit taught in the school system,
state Shinto is an important factor in producing the characteristic Japanese
personality with its strong pride in Nippon's race and culture.
THE SEASONS
Seasonal changes are important in Japanese rural life. Even in the
cities Japanese are very conscious of seasons and there is much poetr^
on the subject. There are many words for different kinds of rain and
snow, special terms for the rainy season and the cold season. Each season
has its characteristic symbol — the pine of New Year's, the cherry blossom
of spring.
In addition to the seasonal round there is a lunar cycle, the fifteenth
of each lunar month (full moon) being the occasion for some festivities
in most rural areas. This combination of an annual and a monthly cycle
is shown diagrammatically in figure 3.
Some of the more important festivals, most of them celebrated accord-
ing to the lunar calendar in rural regions and by the Gregorian calendar
in urban areas, are listed below. National holidays (indicated by an asterisk
here and by crossed red flags on all Japanese calendars) are marked by
official Shinto ceremonies in every Shinto shrine in the country, by the
closing of schools and government offices, and by the display of the na-
tional flag by almost every household. Most national holidays are more
observed by urbanites and officials than by country people, who observe
their own series of folk holidays according to the lunar calendar. The
months have flower names, but the common way of referring to them is
by number, as first month, second month, etc.
It will be noted from the abbreviated festival calendar given here that
some holidays are of Buddhist origin, some of Shinto. The really impor-
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE
31
tant seasonal changes are all observed in rural areas (New Year's, which is
early spring by lunar calendar, midsummer, fall) but the Gregorian dates
followed by the urbanites often have no true seasonal significance.
BUDDHA'S
DEATH DAY
ICHIFUSA
DAY
<C^BUODH*S BIRTHDAY
HACHIMAN,
(now
new olcnoah)'
END
OF TRANS-
PLANTING
END OF RICE AjSEKO
HARVEST W^ -^
ISf-ASON or VILLAGE '
SHHIME FESTIVALS IN KUMA)
o
c
DARK OF MOON
FULL MOON
1ST QUARTER
3RD QUARTER
Fig. 3. — Lunar festival calendar of Suye Mura, a village in southern Japan.
(From Suye Mura, a Japanese village.)
*Jan. lto3. Shogatsu (New Year's). New Year's is the most important holiday of
the year. In rural areas and even in cities, festivities including the
making and eating of large quantities of rice dumplings or mocht and
visits between relatives and friends accompanied by banquets may last
for days. There are official Shinto shrine services on January 1
32 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
{Shihbhai) and January 3 {Genshisai). Debts for the old year are
supposed to be cleared up, and there have been cases of men com-
mitting suicide because they could not meet their obligations by mid-
night of December 31. During New Year's week many people have
a priest in to purify the house for the coming year. There is a whole
series of firsts ceremonially performed, two important ones being the
first bath of the new year and the first meal. Families in rural areas
celebrate New Year's by the old lunar calendar which is some time in
February by "new calendar." However, the official shrine ceremonies
are by new calendar everywhere.
Jan. 15. Koshogatsu (Small New Year's). Various ceremonies having to do with
good crops for the coming year are practiced in rural areas at this time.
*Feb. 11. Kigensetsu. Foundation Day, in honor of the accession of Jimmu Tenno
to the throne. Jimmu Tenno is regarded as the first human emperor,
so February 11 celebrates the historic founding of the Japanese nation.
Feb. 22. The anniversary of the patriotic act of the Three Human Bombs. On
February 22, 1932, three soldiers took a bomb with its fuse lighted to
a bad section of barbed wire in the Chinese lines near Shanghai. The
explosion blew up both the wire and the men, but opened a path for
the army to get through. There is a statue to these men in Tokyo, and
they have become national heroes.
Mar. 3. Hina Matsuri. (Girl Day or Doll Festival). This is one of a series of
Sekku which occur in odd-numbered months and are celebrated in urban
areas by new calendar and in rural areas by lunar calendar. It is a
family festival in honor of girl children. The festival is also called
the Momo Sekku or peach festival, the peach being a Japanese symbol
for woman.
Mar. 6. Empress's birthday. Observed in girls' schools and various women's as-
sociations. If the present Empress dies, this holiday will of course be
changed to the birthday of her successor.
* Mar. 21. Shunki-Kof-ei-sai (Spring Equinox Festival). This date corresponds to
a Buddhist equinox festival called Higan. The Buddhist temple cere-
monies mean more to the people and are more generally attended than
are those of the Shinto shrines. There is a special memorial ceremony
at court for the imperial ancestors.
*Apr. 3. Jhnmu Tenno sai (Death Day of Jimmu Tenno). Not a very impor-
tant day.
Apr. 8. Buddha's birthday. A popular festival marked by ceremonies at the
Buddhist temple, the commonest being one in which an herbal liquid
called sweet tea is poured over a small figure of Buddha by visitors
to the temple, who then take home some of the liquid as a cure for
aches and pains.
*Apr. 29. Tencho-setsu (Emperor's birthday).
May 5. Tengo no Sekku (Boy Day). Another of the Sekku, this one being in
honor of boys. There are family banquets, and paper carp are flown
by houses in which sons have been born during the past year. The carp
is a symbol of the Japanese male because it swims upstream, thus
overcoming difficulties.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 33
July 7. Tanabata (another of the Sekku). This one is in honor of the stars
Veda and Altair, which are symbolized in a romantic story of two lovers
who meet on this day.
July 13-15. Bon (Festival of the Dead). An important popular festival, of Buddhist
origin, in honor of the spirits of the dead who are believed to return
to earth at this time. Special dances {Bon odori) are performed in
many towns and villages at this time, and in rural areas the Bon season
is next in importance to New Year's.
Sept. 4. Anniversary of the great earthquake of 1923-
Sept. 15. The Moon Festival in honor of the harvest moon. Mostly observed by
lunar calendar in rural areas.
*Sept. 23. Shunki Korei Sai (Autumn Equinox Festival). As with the spring
equinox, a Buddhist fall Higan is more important popularly than the
Shinto observance. There are special services at the various local
Buddhist temples, graveyards are visited and cleaned, and fresh flowers
put by gravestones for the spirits of the ancestors. As at the spring
equinox there is an important court memorial ceremony.
*Oct. 17. Kanname Sai (Harvest Thanksgiving to the Deities of Ise). Except
at Ise this holiday is less important than the series of local fall festivals
which occur on various dates in October and November in honor of
the local gods of Shinto shrines throughout Japan.
*Nov. 3. Meiji Setsu (Birthday of the Emperor Meiji). This is an important na-
tional holiday because the Emperor Meiji reigned during the 44-year
period from 1868 to 1912, a period which began with the overthrow of
the old feudal regime and during which great changes occurred in
Japan. Under Meiji Japan became a modern world power. Meiji's
rescript on education is read in the schools at a special ceremony on
this day.
*Nov. 23. Niiname Sai (Harvest Festival of the Imperial House). At court there
is a ceremonial tasting of new rice by the emperor, and a thanking on
behalf of the nation for the harvest both at court and at Ise shrine.
Not a very important day for the people at large.
Dec. 8. Pearl Harbor Day and the opening of the present war. The Japanese
military are making much of this date and, during the early period
of the war at least, the eighth of each month was celebrated.
Dec. 14. Anniversary of the revenge raid on Lord Kira's residence by the 47
ronin. There is a memorial service to their souls held on this day at
Sengakuji Temple in Tokyo.io
*Dec. 25. Taisloo Tenn'o sai (Death day of the Emperor Taisho). Not a very
important day.
10 For the story of the 47 ronin see Mitford's Tales of Old Japan. Briefly, the
story is of a feudal lord, Asano, who in being instructed in etiquette for an audience
with the Shogun was deliberately mistaught by one Lord Kira. As a result, Asano
had to commit ceremonial suicide (seppuku) in order to save his honor. Just
before doing so he told his followers of Kira's treachery. The followers, now ronin
or masterless samurai because of their lord's death, resolved to take vengeance on
Lord Kira. However, he was well protected and on guard against Asano's men.
The leader of the ronin, according to a plan arranged with the rest, allowed him-
34 "" WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
RELIGION AS A FORM OF SOCIAL CONTROL
Religion is an important aspect of social control. The popular Shinshu
sect of Buddhism serves to maintain family solidarity and to give comfort
to the people in their daily work through promise of future happiness. In-
directly it serves to keep the masses peaceable. Zen serves as a means of
encouraging self-control on the part of earnest young men. State Shinto
is the religion officially maintained in the Japanese army and navy. It
also functions as a religious means of creating national solidarity by tying
all local communities to the national shrine at Ise which, in turn, enshrines
the divine ancestress of the emperor. Shinto does more than unite the
remote villages to the nation — it also serves as a base on which to build
national morale and army discipline by stressing the divinity of the
Japanese, the special place of the emperor as the father of the nation and
the consequent duty of giving up one's own comforts, indeed, even one's
own life for the greater glory of the emperor. And, finally, Shinto pro-
vides sacred sanctions for the authority of the emperor in whose name the
government functions.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
CULTURAL HOMOGENEITY AND BORROWING
On the basis of the preceding pages we may now draw some conclusions
in regard to the more significant aspects of Japanese society.
First of all, Japan as a nation is very old, with a reigning dynasty far
older than any other extant. Secondly, during the Tokugawa period
there was a two-century-long peace during which the nation secluded her-
self from the world and consolidated her culture. These two historical
factors have created in Japan a remarkable cultural unity and consequent
political strength as a nation vis-a-vis other nations. At the same time,
in adopting western industrialism Japan has become very self-conscious
in regard to her cultural differences from Western nations (e.g., the
animism of Shinto, the use of ideographic writing, sitting and sleeping
on the floor). Japan and the Japanese are different from other nations,
or rather, as Japanese nationalists phrase it, they are "unique among the
peoples and cultures of the world."
self to be seen in the company of prostitutes and drunkards, while the others all
found various jobs. Then, years later, when Lord Kira was convinced the danger
of retribution was past, the ronin stormed his house 'and killed him, after which
they all committed suicide. These men are great heroes in Japan because of their
demonstration of loyalty. The story also reveals some interesting methods of war-
fare honored in Japanese culture.
SMITHSONIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. iNARi Shrine and Geisha Girl
In the garden of a tea house.
2. Festival in a Country Town
Giving pennies to the Shis hi (lion).
SMITHSONIAM WAR BACKGROUMD STUDIES, NO. 7
1. RESPECT FOR THE AGED
Old people are given a special place at a school athletic meet.
2. Cooperative Labor on the Neighborhood Roads
One man or woman from each house gives a day's work.
SMITHSONIAIM WAR BACKGROUMD STUDIES, NO. 7
1. SERICUUTURE
Mother and daughter on the way to pick mulberry leaves for silkworms. The
dress is typical of the silkworm-raising regions of Nagano.
2. FISHING
A group of fishermen at Hommoku, Tokyo, with their fish laid out to dry in the sun.
SMITHSOMIAN WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
1. Transportation
Ueno Station in Tokyo.
2. Water Power
A powerhouse by a mountain stream in Kyushu.
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 35
Being an insular nation with a sizable population well united, the
Japanese, in contrast to the Indians and the Malayans, were able to
preserve their independence when the Europeans arrived in gunboats.
Learning a lesson from the fate of her neighbors, Japan soon learned the
art of modern firearms and Western technology in general. In this way
she gained material strength and became a power. It is important to
realize, however, that in the ideological field Japan borrowed very little,
preferring instead her own set of cultural values — the sacred imperial line,
loyalty to family and overlord. Buddhism. The Western concomitants
of industrialism — English democracy and Christianity — were definitely re-
jected by Japan. In other words, the cultural borrowing of the past
80 years has been selective and controlled. The governing powers, fol-
lowing the Tokugawa tradition, have carefully controlled the cultural in-
take from foreign lands and in the field of ideology have exercised a
remarkably successful thought control.
This situation, whereby a "culture trait" is borrowed while the "mean-
ing" associated with it by the people who developed it is ignored, is a
familiar enough phenomenon to the ethnologist in studying cultural
diffusion, but is a cause of constant surprise to newcomers in Japan. The
Japanese also tend to ignore the secular reality of such selective borrow-
ing and to develop a defense reaction: We are Japanese and therefore
do not need Christianity; democracy is not suited to the Japanese way;
Japanese ways, being different from European ones, are therefore superior
to them and, in the interests of humanity, it is our divine duty to bring
the Japanese way to all the world. Thus there has actually been one very
important shift in Japanese ideology. In Tokugawa days the policy was
to leave foreign lands severely alone, while today, as a result of industriali-
zation and the need for markets and raw materials, Japan has come to
have a "mission" to expand.
The adult Japanese, as a member of a closely knit family whose basic
structure is similar throughout the nation, receives an early training and
set of moral values remarkably similar to that of all other Japanese. This
similarity is further emphasized by his training in the national school
system. At the same time, owing to differences between urban and rural
life and the gap between the masses and the upper-class groups, there are
some important exceptions to be made to any generalization in regard to
the cultural homogeneity of the Japanese. In rural regions every district
has its own dialect and set of local customs and special beliefs. The
educated groups lack this geographic diversity of culture, but acquire
36 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
marked occupational differences. The school teacher, for instance, is
usually an ardent nationalist and firm believer in the superiority of
Japanese race and culture. The merchant, more worldly, frequently smiles
at the naive earnestness of the teacher, and looks upon the farmer as a
rustic person almost as far removed from himself as a foreigner. The
middle-class civil servant, who has the opportunity through being trans-
ferred from region to region to compare different parts of the nation and
to witness the political maneuverings of his contemporaries and superiors
and the way in which lower classes are frequently manipulated by groups
in political power, may acquire a deep-seated skepticism concerning many
aspects of Japanese society. On the other hand, young officers, often re-
cruited from old samurai families, are deeply imbued with the concept of
Japanese superiority and the divine mission of Japan to conquer the world.
There is also a sharp contrast between men and women at almost all
levels of Japanese society. Most of the beliefs and practices of popular
Buddhism and Shinto are carried out by the women, while the men for
the most part merely tolerate them and may even refer to them as super-
stitions. On the other hand, it is the men who are more likely to carry
out the nationalist spirit of state Shinto. Owing to their shorter period of
education, lesser opportunity to travel, and exclusion from spheres of
life such as politics, Japanese women have simpler adult personalities
than their brothers and husbands.
POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS REGARDING THE JAPANESE
Because we have never paid much attention to the Japanese we have
tended to build up and accept a number of mental stereotypes concerning
them — stereotypes which are dangerous because they mislead us in regard
to the nature of a people with whom we are now at war.
First there is the idea of the Japanese as a quaint little people devoted
to cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji. The people are little, and they do
like both cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji, but they are not thereby
quaint by any means. It has been with great difficulty that we have come
to recognize the ability of Japanese to construct first-class battleships and
airplanes. The perfect coordination of the attack on December 7 demon-
strated an ability to plan and carry out action of a most complicated nature.
Related to the stereotype of quaintness is that of imitativeness. Most
anthropologists realize that every culture is made up of a vast dough of
borrowed culture with a small pinch of original invention. Americans,
for instance, speak a "borrowed" language, and use a "borrowed" script,
their legal system is largely borrowed, and their religion is also no original
THE JAPANESE — EMBREE 37
invention. Furthermore, even in the field of industrial development, most
of the basic inventions involved are by no means original to America —
e.g., the wheel, the steam engine, wireless communication. Similarly, most
Japanese culture is borrowed — her script, her Buddhist religion, her in-
dustrial development. But, as with other peoples, on the basis of existing
and borrowed cultural materials, the Japanese have been able to develop
new combinations to suit their own cultural tradition. Japan is not to be
underestimated in ability to borrow, adapt, and invent so far as her
material resources and international contacts permit. To underrate Japan
as an imitator is just as dangerously fallacious as to underrate her as
quaint.
The Japanese are also subject to their own mental stereotypes of
Americans — one of them being that we are soft and weak. A more subtle
one, because more widely believed both in Japan and in this country is
that Americans lack "emotional restraint," in contrast to the self-controlled
Japanese of samurai tradition. This, of course, is due to a typical mis-
interpretation of individual psychology through a lack of understanding
of the cultural values determining the development of personality in
a culture different from one's own.
In the Japanese attacks on American lack of emotional restraint a com-
mon factor is the selection of those aspects of life in which Japanese culture
imposes its greatest restraint. For instance, the Japanese often cite the way
Americans kiss in public as a proof of their lack of restraint. In Japan
the husband-wife relationship is hedged about by a whole series of re-
strictions which make it tabu for a man to reveal publicly by act or word
affection for his wife, even though he may love her deeply. American
culture, on the other hand, idealizes romance and love between the sexes,
so that it is not only permitted, but required that a husband and wife show
some outward signs of affection.
However, American culture imposes strong restraints on members of
the "respectable" middle classes in regard to sex. A husband is expected
to restrict his attentions to his wife, and any polygamous inclinations are
supposed to be suppressed. In Japan it is quite proper for a man to visit
a geisha or a joro and to do so in the company of a number of male friends.
The men may have a drinking party first, everyone becoming quite drunk,
after which each man may retire to be visited later by one of the girls
who served the wine. The geisha party is usually one of complete public
unrestraint of a type more or less tabu in American culture.
Another type of emotional unrestraint permissive in Japanese culture
is the orgy of sentimentalism which surrounds cherry blossoms. Both
poet and laymen, in the season of cherry blossoms, are expected to visit
38 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
the trees, compare the transience of the blossoms to the transience of
human life, the soul of the flower to the soul of a soldier, and in general
to give voice to sentiments which an ordinary American male would re-
gard as "unmanly."
Still another form of emotional unrestraint permitted in Japanese society
is that between a mother and her small children, especially boys. A
mother gives in to every whim of her young son, and the young son on
his part soon learns that he may obtain anything he wishes by simply
crying or shouting for it. For a mother to show "emotional restraint" in
an attempt to train her child to better behavior would be regarded by
Japanese as unnatural and stony-hearted.
In warfare, the lack of restraint of Japanese 'soldiers toward a village
or town when conquered after a period of resistance is well known. While
this is partly due to the circumstances of warfare, regardless of specific
cultural background, it is also in part a reflection of Japanese male char-
acter structure whereby a Japanese man regards himself as a superior
person to be obeyed without question. If a foreign community refuses
to surrender when asked and presents difficult opposition as did Nanking
and Hongkong, the first reaction of the Japanese soldier is anger at being
thus frustrated.
The Japanese, then, are to be understood as a people whose basic mental
and psychological abilities and processes are similar at birth to those of
Americans or Germans or Chinese, but owing to a radically different system
of child training and cultural values the personalities of adult Japanese born
and bred in Japan are often difficult for Americans (including many Ameri-
cans of Japanese ancestry) to understand. They are, however, not for that
reason either to be magnified as having mysterious Oriental minds or to
be dismissed as being quaint, childlike people of no importance in the
modern world.
APPENDIX
FACTS AND FIGURES
Area. — Japan proper (Kyushu, Shikoku, Honshu, and Hokkaido)
covers 148,756 square miles; including overseas territories (Korea,
Karafuto, Formosa and the mandated territories in Micronesia), 260,644
square miles.
Location. — The Japanese archipelago extends off the east coast of the
Asiatic mainland from 21 °46' N. latitude (the southern point of Formosa)
to 50° 55' N. latitude (the last of the Kurile Islands).
Climate. — Formosa in the south is subtropical and the Kuriles in the
north are subarctic. The main islands (Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu) are
temperate in climate. The weather of Tokyo is similar to that of Wash-
ington, D. C. Heavy snowfalls are frequent in northern Honshu and
Hokkaido, but the central regions, especially on the Pacific side, have
mild winters. There is abundant rainfall, and during an early summer
season, called nub ai, it drizzles every day in Tokyo.
Geography. — Japan is an archipelago of mountainous volcanic islands
with deeply indented coast lines. Mount Fuji, 12,425 feet in height, is
but one of many volcanic cones. The earthquake zone has its center along
the Pacific coast near the Bay of Tokyo. The last devastating quake
struck Yokohoma and Tokyo in 1923. Minor quakes occur daily but
many of them are not perceptible without a seismograph.
Mineral waters and hot springs abound. Natural resources include rich
forests and the much-used bamboo, mineral products such as gold and
silver, coal, sulfur, and limited amounts of copper and zinc. Water power
is supplied in plentiful amounts from short, swift mountain streams. The
amount of arable land is limited, but the valleys and plains have a rich
soil suitable for intensive wet rice agriculture. Serious lacks for an in-
dustrial nation are petroleum, iron, and mercury.
Population. —
Japan proper 73,1 14,308 ^^
Total Empire 105,226,101 "
Over 99 percent of the inhabitants are Japanese. In addition there are
about half a million Koreans and 20,000 to 25,000 Chinese. Other for
eigners numbered about 10,000 in 1938. ^^
11 Japanese census figures for 1940.
12 Far East Year Bobk, 1941 (figures as of 1938),
39
40 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
Japanese Overseas
Asia (including Manchuria) 515,440
Oceania (mostly Hawaii) 154,933
South America (mostly Brazil) 228,478
North America (mostly West Coast) 141,481
Europe 2,882
Africa 198
Total 1,043,412 i3
There is a special significance in these figures for overseas Japanese
because they show that the Japanese have been traditionally reluctant to
emigrate. Less than 2 percent of all Japanese live abroad. This fact,
taken together with a rising standard of living in Japan during recent
years, shows that there is little justification for Japanese imperialist ex-
pansion on the basis of "population pressure." The need for overseas
areas was not for colonization, but rather the urge of a growing industrial
nation for control of raw materials and markets in a world of rising tariffs
and other trade restrictions.
Most Japanese emigrants to the United States are residents of long
standing who came in as individuals on their own initiative in significant
contrast to the Japanese who emigrated to Manchuria and the Philippines
in recent years with the moral and often financial encouragement of the
Japanese government (Kuykendall, 1935;Embree, 194la). Their children
are for the most part American in culture and in point of view.
13 Far East Yearbook, 1941 (figures as of 1937). The U. S. Census of 1940 gives
126,947 in mainland United States and 157,905 in Hawaii.
REFERENCES AND SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY i*
Anesaki, Masaharu.
1930. History of Japanese religion with special reference to the social and
moral life of the nation. Paul, Trench and Trubner & Co., Ltd.,
London.
ASAKAWA, K.
1910-11. Notes on village government in Japan after I6OO. Journ. Amer.
Orient. Soc, vol. 30, pt. 3, pp. 259-300, and vol. 31, pt. 2, pp. 151-
216.
Aston, W. G.
1905. Shinto: the way of the gods. Longmans Green & Co., London.
1924. Nihongi (translation). Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner & Co., Ltd.,
London.
Buchanan, D. C.
1935. Inari: its origin, development and nature. Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan.
2d ser., vol. 12.
Chamberlain, B. H.
1932. Kojiki (translation). J. L. Thompson, Kobe.
Eliot, Sir Charles.
1935. Japanese Buddhism. Edwin Arnold, London.
Embree, John F.
1939a. Suye Mura, a Japanese village. Univ. Chicago Press.
1939b. Notes on the Indian god Gavagriva (Godzu Tenno) in contemporary
Japan. Journ. Amer. Orient. Soc, vol. 50, pp. 67-70.
1939c. Bon Song. Paradise of the Pacific, vol. 51, pp. 22-23.
194la. Acculturation among the Japanese of Kona, Hawaii. Amer. Anthrop.
Soc, Mem. 59.
1941b. Some social functions of religion in rural Japan. Amer. Journ. Sociol.,
vol. 47, pp. 184-189.
FUKUZAWA, YuKICHI.
1934. The autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi. Hokuseido, Tokyo. .
HozuMi, Nobushige.
1912. Ancestor worship and Japanese law. Maruzen, Tokyo.
IsHiMOTO, Baroness.
1935. Facing two ways. Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., New York.
Kato, Genchi.
1924. A study of the development of religious ideas among the Japanese
people as illustrated by Japanese phallicism. Trans. Asiatic Soc.
Japan, 2d ser., suppl. to vol. 1.
1926. A study of Shinto, the religion of the Japanese nation. Meiji-Japan Soc,
Tokyo.
1* For a good modern bibliography on all aspects of Japan see A Selected List
of Books and Articles on Japan in English, French and German, compiled by
Hugh Borton, Serge Elisseeff, and Edwin Reischauer, published by the American
Council of Learned Societies, Washington, D. C, 1940.
41
42 WAR BACKGROUND STUDIES, NO. 7
KUYKENDALL, RALPH.
1935. The earliest Japanese labor immigration to Hawaii. Univ. Hawaii
Occ. Pap., No. 25.
MiTFORD, A. B. (Lord Redesdale).
1871. Tales of Old Japan. Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London.
NiTOBE, Inazo.
1931a. Japan. Scribner's, New York.
1931b. Western influences in modern Japan. Univ. Chicago Press.
Reed, J. Paul.
1940. Kokutai. Privately printed by Univ. Chicago Press.
Sansom, Sir George.
1931. Japan, a short cultural history. Century, New York.
Takikawa, Masajiro.
1933. Law, Japanese. Encycl. Social Sci., vol. 9, pp. 254-257.
Torii, Ryuzo.
1935. Ancient Japan in the light of anthropology. Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai,
Tokyo.
TsuCHiYA, Takao.
1937. An economic history of Japan. Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, 2d ser.,
vol. 15.
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